‘Loci populum!’ appeared on walls of the Water Street development.
Photograph: @RTaylorUK/PA

A new luxury development in Cambridge has been found vandalised with graffiti. In a surprising move the culprits decided to use Latin, painting the words “loci populum!” and “locus in domos” in large letters across the front and sides of the houses in Water Street, Chesterton.

Mary Beard, professor of classics at Cambridge University, told the BBC: “This is a bit hard to translate, but I think what they’re trying to say is that a lovely place has been turned into houses.”

The Latin phrases translate as “local people!” and “place of homes”. Other phrases daubed on to the buildings included “We [heart] our home” and the symbols for dollars, euros and the yen, followed by the phrase “go away”.

The six houses, built on the site of a pub, have gone on the market at a price of £1.25m each.

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“House prices are a massive problem in Cambridge,” said Richard Taylor, a resident who has been campaigning on the development and related issues since it began. The average house price in Cambridge is about £500,000 – at least 12 times the average salary in the area.

“We’ve got incredibly rich people living one street away from incredibly poor people,” Taylor said. “Clearly somebody is protesting against these houses.”

This is not the first time people from Cambridge have seen a protest in a classical language. In 2015, someone threatened to “remove or destroy” bicycles chained to railings in the city centre, with the warning written in Greek and Latin.

“We do have our eccentrics in the city,” Taylor added, “but it doesn’t seem to go together, the ability to write in Latin and being prepared to scrawl on buildings and cause massive amounts of damage.”

A spokesperson for the developer said: “We have been made aware of the incident of criminal damage at our Water Street development and are taking steps to remove the graffiti.

“This appears to be an isolated incident and it has been reported to the police who are investigating. We will be reviewing our current security measures at the location.”

Police said they were alerted to reports of criminal damage to four buildings at 8am on Tuesday and officers were investigating.

Anyone with information should call police on 101 quoting CF0183620417.